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Although some important aspects of what we accomplished in 2018 may not be evident in today's results, we believe they will become apparent in the coming years. We expect 2018 to be seen as a pivotal time in the Company's history, as our innovation growth strategy took flight, expanding our reach in molecular diagnostics and driving our business internationally.

Looking at our full-year results, you will see solid growth in the areas we targeted and where we are investing. Importantly, as we endeavor to transform the composition of our top line, we did not lose focus on the bottom line and posted strong profitability. We believe we have identified select opportunities that will drive our next wave of growth.

For the full year 2018, our net revenues grew by a solid 9% over the prior-year period and reached the highest level in our history. We also continued to deliver strong profitability, a major contributor with our OraQuick HIV international business, which grew by 93% for the year, primarily due to strong HIV self-test sales. Our molecular business also contributed with revenues up more than 15% for the full year. Our microbiome business continued an important trend in 2018 with revenues nearly doubling when compared to 2017.

And finally, we ended the year in an extremely strong financial position with no debt and cash balances exceeding $200 million for the first time ever. During the fourth quarter, our consolidated net income improved 41% from the prior-year quarter. This strong bottom-line performance was generated by a number of factors. International sales of our OraQuick HIV and HCV products rose 23% and 40%, respectively, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.

Although Q4 molecular collection revenues were down due to unusually high sales to our consumer genomics customers in the fourth quarter of 2017 driven by atypical ordering patterns, we saw a strong growth elsewhere in both our genomics and microbiome businesses during the current quarter. We see this as a positive trend for the future of our molecular business. Other revenues for the quarter rose almost 200% compared to Q4 of 2017 as a result of close to $5 million in royalty from a litigation settlement agreement. Our gross profit improved by more than 25% over the fourth quarter of 2017.

On the strategic front, we began aggressively implementing our innovation growth strategy. Following an intense period of due diligence and negotiation toward the end of 2018, we opened the new year by closing two strategic acquisitions, which will add new products and technologies and new market reach. We believe both companies will eventually become strong contributors to our business. Strong financial results and important progress in executing against our long-term strategy were a great way to end 2018 and begin a new year.

And with that, let me now turn the call over to Roberto for his financial review. I will then follow up on some of the key factors driving our business and we'll open the call for your questions.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. Our fourth quarter net revenues decreased 3% to $50.2 million from $52.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. Our net product revenues decreased 11% to $44.8 million compared to the prior-year period. Our molecular net revenues including royalty income increased 2% to $30.2 million in the fourth quarter compared to $29.8 million in 2017. Royalty income was $4.8 million in the fourth quarter 2018. No royalty income was recorded in 2017. Molecular product revenues decreased 15% to $25.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, compared to $29.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Sales of our genomic products declined 18% to $23.5 million, largely due to lower sales to a large consumer genomics customer. The primary reason for this is that sales to this customer in the fourth quarter of 2017 were unusually high as a result of unexpected consumer demands that occurred during that quarter. Microbiome sales also expanded growing 72% to $1.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to the same period last year.

International HIV sales increased 23% to $4.4 million from $3.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 due to higher sales OraQuick HIV self-test into Africa and increased sales of our professional product in Asia and Europe. Once again, a majority of our volume this quarter came from countries outside of the Unitaid, Population Services International, Self-Testing Africa or STAR initiative demonstrating continuing growth of countrywide pilots and initiatives. Tests shipped to African countries, both in and outside the STAR program during the quarter, were subject to support payments under our charitable support agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Domestic HIV sales decreased 23% to $5.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to $6.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, largely due to customer ordering patterns and other factors we have previously discussed. International HCV sales in the fourth quarter of 2018 increased 40% to $1.6 million from $1.1 million in the same period of 2017, primarily due to continued growth in Asia and Africa. Domestic HCV sales decreased 16% in the fourth quarter of 2018 to $2.1 million from $2.5 million in the prior year, largely due to customer ordering patterns. Other revenues were $578,000 in the current quarter compared to $1.8 million in the prior year. The decrease is largely due to a decrease in BARDA funding and cost reimbursement under our charitable support agreement with the Gates Foundation.

Gross profit percentage for the fourth quarter of 2018 was 69% compared to 55% reported for the fourth quarter of 2017. Gross profit percentage for the current quarter benefited from improved product mix, the increase in royalty income, lower manufacturing costs associated with our Oragene product, lower scrap and spoilage costs and lower royalty expense.

Our operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2018 were $22.2 million compared to $18.4 million in the comparable period of 2017. Operating expense in the fourth quarter of 2018 included $1.2 million of transaction costs associated with our recent acquisition and $973,000 of additional transition costs associated with executive management changes that occurred earlier in the year. Higher commissions and consulting and other staffing costs further contributed to the increase in operating expenses.

Income tax expense was $3.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to $3.0 million in the same period last year and consists largely of Canadian taxes due and is reflective of the higher pre-tax earnings generated by our Canadian subsidiary.

We reported net income of $10.3 million or $0.16 per share for the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to net income of $7.3 million or $0.12 per share for the fourth quarter of 2017. We continue to maintain a solid cash and liquidity position. Our cash and investment balance at the end of 2018 was $201.3 million compared to $176.6 million at the end of 2017.

Cash generated by operating activities during 2018 was $39.1 million compared to $28.2 million in the same period of 2017, which included $12.5 million in litigation settlement.

Turning to guidance for the first quarter of 2019, we are projecting revenues of $29.0 million to $30.5 million and net loss of $0.06 to $0.07 per share. This projection is largely driven by lower expected sales to a larger consumer genomics customer. As stated on prior calls, sales to this customer were unusually high in the fourth quarter of 2017 and what appeared to be a more normal level in the fourth quarter of 2018 in response to seasonal retail promotional activity at the end of the year. This large customer is now further changing its purchasing patterns and promotional strategies, which in turn is driving our guidance for the first quarter of this year.

We only recently learned of their lower purchasing intentions and although disappointing, we expect that the effect of these changes will be moderated over the course of the year by opportunistic growth in other genomics accounts. For that reason, we do not view the first quarter as an indication and anticipate for the rest of 2019. Our expectation is that the second half of 2019 would deliver higher revenues in the first half, much as we've seen in 2017 and 2018. We are also confident in our ability to deliver profitability in 2019.

And with that I will now turn the call back over to Steve.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Roberto. Let's take a look at some of our key growth drivers. Our global HIV testing business delivered outstanding results in 2018, largely as a result of HIV self-test sales in the international marketplace. Fourth quarter self-testing volumes were up sequentially from the third quarter and total year volumes were up significantly over 2017. As Roberto noted, international HIV sales grew 23% in the fourth quarter and almost doubled for the full year when compared to 2017. As you know, the HIV self-test business was jump started by the Self-Test Africa or STAR program that Roberto mentioned. The market has evolved quite a bit since that program was first launched in 2015. During Q4, 64% of orders occurred outside of the STAR program and 58% of our self-test sales, for all of 2018, were a result of non-STAR orders. This demonstrates significant positive momentum and growth for this business, as the market continues to expand organically beyond the initial countries we serve when this product was first launched.

The key driver for HIV self-testing has been our charitable support agreement with the Gates Foundation, targeting 50 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, West Africa, Asia, Central Asia and Latin America. We continue to support new registrations in the countries covered by this agreement along with ongoing educational efforts to promote the attractive pricing we can offer. Thanks to the Gates Foundation.

While demand for our self-test product can and likely will be a bit choppy on a quarter-by-quarter basis, as countries develop their testing programs and understand ongoing demand needs, the overall trend for this business is very positive. We continue to believe the projections in the report issued by the World Health Organization and Unitaid on the global market for rapid HIV testing are directionally correct. As you may recall, that report suggests that demand for self-test is expected to increase from about 1 million tests in 2017 to a range that averages up to (ph) 16 million tests annually by the end of 2020, the high end of that range reaching just over 19 million tests annually. We believe the market conditions will continue to drive strong growth for HIV self-testing throughout 2019 and beyond.

Turning to our other main growth platform, full-year molecular collections revenue delivered a solid 15% growth rate over 2017. Although the contribution from our consumer genomics customers is changing when compared to prior years, this is doesn't dampen the outlook for genomics or the overall prospects for our molecular business, as evidenced by the fact that we acquired 56 new customers in Q4 and 332 for the whole year.

The genomics business saw a revenue growth of 11% for the full year. Although customers genomics is and will continue to be an important part of the genomics business, we are also seeing growth in other areas of the genomics market. For example, 2018 saw renewed strength from academic customers with revenue growth reaching 16% for the full year.

Our academic business continues to benefit from large epidemiological studies. For example, a clinical study called, My Personal Breast Screening project is testing 50,000 women for their individual risk of developing breast cancer and investigating whether mammography screening could be improved by personalized individual risk based screening. The study is being financed by the European Union under the innovation Horizon 2020 program, is being conducted by (inaudible), which is the Center for Cancer Prevention in France and the principal operator for Academic Cancer Research in Europe.

We also saw extraordinary growth from our Oracollect business, particularly in the second half of the year with global revenues up more than 200% for both the fourth quarter and the full year 2018 when compared to 2017. This was driven in part by one of our top 20 customers in Asia, was using Oracollect test kit. We are encouraged by demand for genomics business in Asia where revenue from one of our top three customers grew 184% in Q4 and 175% for the full year when compared to 2017. Revenue from another top 20 customer in Asia increased by more than 450% in Q4 and by 500% for the year.

In the microbiome market, we delivered another record performance in 2017 with fourth quarter revenues up 72% and full-year revenues up 92% compared with 2017. Again, we are seeing growth in Asia where microbiome revenues increased 72% in Q4 compared to Q3 and 62% compared to the fourth quarter of 2017. Similarly, microbiome revenues in Europe increased 191% sequentially in Q4 and 221% compared to Q4 in 2017. One of our top microbiome customers starting a Phase II clinical trial and assigned a microbiome service contract to be executed in 2019. During the fourth quarter, we signed five new pharma and one new direct-to-consumer or DTC customer in the microbiome space.

One example of a new DTC customer for whom we're providing both kits and services is Onegevity Health, a consumer health intelligence company that combines a multi-omic artificial intelligence platform with consumer-friendly products and services, focused on personalized health and wellness.

So, stepping back to look at the bigger picture, our molecular business is becoming broader and is showing good strength beyond one or two large customers. The list of our top 20 molecular customers reveals some interesting trends; 18 of our top 20 molecular accounts drove higher sales for the most recent 12-month trailing period compared to the prior period with 17 showing double or triple digit revenue growth rates. For the first time, two microbiome customers are now in the top 20 and a new academic customer also joined the top 20 list.

Two of our top 20 customers are located in Asia, and one of these customers is in the top three. Seven of our top 20 customers are currently under multi-year supply agreements. Half of our top 20 customers use our customization services. Finally, one of our top 20 customers provides direct-to-consumer K-9 testing services and claims Oprah as a fan, In fact, she put it on our list of her favorite things for 2017. These statistics point to the growing strength and diversity of our molecular business.

I also want to touch on our mergers and acquisition activity, in particular our recent acquisitions of CoreBiome and Novosanis. Starting with CoreBiome, we are very excited to have this company on board. This is exactly the type of transaction that we seek to target, as it broadens our reach in molecular and mix (ph) organization criteria. CoreBiome is a Minnesota based microbiome service provider, spun out of the University of Minnesota. It was founded by three leading domain experts, in microbiome informatics, genomics methods and clinical lab operations. CoreBiome's proprietary technology provides fast, information-rich characterizations of the microbiome diversity and its function, and pairs that information with machine learning and expert analytics.

This acquisition positions OraSure to become a leading end-to-end solutions provider for researchers, direct-to-consumer companies and therapeutics and diagnostic development customers, covering everything from sample collection to delivery of a final analysis. This is an important part of our innovation growth strategy. We expect to see powerful synergy by combining CoreBiome's platform with the proprietary sampling and stabilization technology and deeper sales and marketing resources of our subsidiary DNA Genotek. We are enthusiastic about this addition to our evolving multi-omics business. We hope that this acquisition will look prescient in a few years, as we expect the microbiome market to continue to post strong growth for years to come.

Novosanis was also spun out of a university setting, this time in Belgium with technology coming out of the University of Antwerp. Novosanis expands our collection capabilities into the urine market and also broadens our addressable markets. Its primary technology called Colli-Pee is the only available, easy to use device suited for standardized, volumetric collection of first-void urine in the privacy of user at home or at the clinic. We believe the Colli-Pee product line offers important competitive advantages for urine testing with the first applications in the liquid biopsy market for prostate and bladder cancers, as well as sexually transmitted infections. Novosanis expands our product portfolio and advances our expertise in the non-invasive sample collection and stabilization landscape.

Together, these acquisitions support our efforts to expand even deeper into the multi-omics and systems biology arenas. Both companies were relatively low-cost, tuck-in type acquisitions for our molecular business. We are making good progress with our integration activities, as we leverage the strength from both organizations, and we're already seeing new customer contracts generated by both companies. We're excited to combine the broader resources of the OraSure sales, operations and research organizations to supplement the innovative new technologies developed by these important additions to the OraSure family. I cannot emphasize enough that these acquisitions represent clear progress as we execute our innovation growth strategy and supplement our core business with focus strategic acquisitions. These transactions are the first steps and what we expect to be a broader and ongoing growth story. So please stay tuned.

In closing, I want to thank all those with the Company who made 2018 such a success. We accomplished a great deal, but our work to implement our innovation growth strategy has just begun. If you listen to our presentation recently at the JPMorgan Conference, you may recall the discussion of a relatively little known topic to many and that is multi-omics. Genomics was the first frontier, microbiome is a next, and a multi-omcis is the emerging frontier, which provides further insights beyond proteomics and metabolomics as our best view of how the human body responds for genes and environment.

Multi-omcis provides thorough multi-factorial examination of health. This area is still largely in its infancy where we want to take an early leadership position to capture the large sample collection and testing opportunities we anticipate in the years to come. As you've heard today, we're building on our core strengths in the areas of innovation tools and services to expand even deeper into the multi-omics consistent biology arena. Multi-omcis requires the ability to analyze and interpret massive data sets to extrapolate an comprehensive view of health and well-being.

By examining the owns with genome, the proteome, transcriptome, epigenome and the microbiome, we can assess all aspects of what's in us, what's on us and to inform our health; broadly speaking to the markets we serve and to understand the continuum of wellness with disease by profiling well-characterized patient populations with molecular techniques. Genomics has been hugely informative to this end. But we need to zoom out, we quickly realize that our 23,000 genes encode only a small fraction of our biochemical potential. Microbes, which colonized us inside and out, collectively encode 10 times more genetic and functional potential. Only recently has the scientific community developed the computational and (inaudible) tools for harness the relatively new branch multi-omics.

Technological advances have enabled to study the physiological and cellular changes at different molecular levels. Multi-omics lets us integrate data from large populations to potentially impact prevention, improved diagnostics and more effectively treat complex diseases such as cancer and diabetes. The potential of this multi-omics approach is demonstrated by the fact that 40% of our microbiome customers were or are customers of our genomic product lines.

We are well positioned to capitalize on opportunities across the multiple sample types in analytes and from existing Oragene or OMNIgene customers as they expand their research offerings to incorporate more aspects of health for systems biology. We also believe there will be continued strong growth from our HIV self-test business and we're optimistic that there's additional attention for OraQuick HCV product line. And as we recently demonstrated, our strong balance sheet will enable us to continue to execute on our long-term growth strategy in very concrete ways by acquiring new products and technology. I'm confident our strategy is on target and I look forward to updating you on our progress as we move through the new year.

And with that, we'll now take your questions. Operator, please proceed. Operator, please proceed and take questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Mark Massaro with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions,

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Mark.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Yes. The first one is on the Q1 revenue guidance and I know historically you've talked about how you do have visibility to ordering patterns with your customers. I think -- I don't want to put words in your mouth, but my understanding, it's roughly a three-month or so visibility to ordering. So I also know in your prepared remarks you talked about how -- you only recently found out about the large customer. So I guess can you give us a sense of when exactly you found out and whether or not you think that you have three or more months of visibility going forward?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks for the question, Mark. Yes. So we found out in the last couple of weeks. So after the conference in which many of us attended in San Francisco. So, there were discussions with this customer at the end of last year about how they wanted to order for last year and this year. So, notwithstanding that there is an ability to use firm orders, there were some flexibility in the recent discussions with this customer, that is different from the way it typically is. So, for this particular quarter, they told us later into the quarter than they normally would what they wanted to do as a final matter. So it was a bit of a surprise for us and consequently a disappointment. But as we said in the guidance discussion, we do expect that once other market -- once other consumer genomics market participants understand the change of this customer's approach to the market, they will step in and begin promoting and discounting more aggressively and take up some of the flat.

One of the -- I think one of the important points to note here is that, because this is one of our largest customers, it's one of the ones that gets some of the best pricing and so as volume is replaced from other competitors, it's likely that we'll be seeing better gross margin percentage from those replacement orders.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Got it. And as it relates to that large customer, are you holding flat on pricing with that large customer? I guess, I would think that this is the same customer you have the long-term supply agreement with. So, has there been any change -- the prepared remarks talk about lower purchasing intentions, which I would assume to be volume, but is there any change in price?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

There is no change in price.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Okay. And is there any way you can -- I guess, as a follow-up, are you aware of why the volumes are expected to be lower other than the large customer indicated so? Just curious if you know the specific reason, but just cannot disclose it.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We do know the specific reason and we cannot disclose it, but I think that as a market dynamic, this segment direct to consumer is largely driven, Mark, as you know by promotion and advertising. And so, I think they've made certain decisions about that.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Yes. Perfect. And then is there any way you could give a sense on the revenue split. I know, for instance Alumina talked about certain percentage second half of the year being, I think, it was 53%. I know -- so I'm curious -- obviously, you expect the second half of the year to pickup, but can you give us a sense of the magnitude on a percentage of revenue basis.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

So we are not providing full-year guidance. That said, as we said in the prepared remarks, we do expect the second half to be greater than the first half. We do also expect that competitors of our largest customer will step in and capture additional share and units. One of the challenges for us is that depending on which customer those are that hits our revenue line in different ways. So, as you know, there is a -- not quite customer that pays us royalty at a rate that's more like a net profit rate than it it's typical revenue rate.

So depending on how the incremental share capture breaks down between different market participants, we could have different effects on our top line. So we do have some expectations around what we see for the full year, we do want to see some additional reactivity and actions (ph) from the market participants before we firm that up and share that more broadly with investors.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Okay. And just as a clarification, this customer is changing their ordering patterns. They're not coming off the market or anything in Q1, are they or they are just lowering their -- lowering their ordering this quarter?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

They are not coming off the market.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Okay. Last question from me. Can you speak about the potential opportunities in hepatitis C eradication OUS and whether or not you're still having conversations there?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We are still having conversations. I think I've noted in previous calls, Mark, that there's been renewed interest in country by country eradication programs, particularly where there's a high prevalence of hepatitis C. What's lacking just structurally is funding along the same magnitude that we have seen for HIV eradication which of course has benefited our self-test. So I think there are very similar dynamics in the marketplace. And of course hepatitis C is a much bigger challenge from the public health perspective than HIV is, because of the infection rates, but it also benefits from the fact that there is a cure. So, we still like the prospects of like for (ph) HCV eradication and we are working at country by country. But we're also trying to engage funders in this discussion as well, particularly funders who have participated in the success of HIV eradication as we have.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Great. I'll hop back in the queue.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Mark.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question from Brandon Couillard with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Brandon Couillard -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Thanks .Good afternoon.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Brandon.

Brandon Couillard -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Could you elaborate a little more on just what specifically is changing with this large genomics customer in terms of the ordering patterns and why do you necessarily expect that to moderate as you move through the year? And then could you remind us -- do you actually have annual minimums from this large customer?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We do have annual minimums from (inaudible) customer. As we look ahead to the prospects for the entire year 2019, we are being conservative with our estimates for this customer. And I think what we've alluded to in the prepared remarks is that we believe that there will be an uptick in other players in this portion of the industry to gain market share and so we have not quantified that for outside purposes, but we certainly have internal purposes.

Brandon Couillard -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Okay. And then any chance you'd be willing to share with us some goalposts for the year as you think about the molecular collection business? I mean, would you expect that unit to actually show growth this year sort of net of the acquisitions and you kind of referred to the core business and an acquisition supporting return to growth in the future periods. Does that suggest a year-over-year growth perhaps in the back half of this year?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

So, we're not providing full-year guidance right now. I do understand though the the interest in this question and I'll return to a comment that I said earlier in response to a prior question, which is that, we have reasons to believe that much of the volume that is going out of the first quarter of this year will be picked up by competitors over the course of the year. I think some of those competitors may not yet be aware of what this change is and how it's affecting the market and so have not yet primed themselves to pick up additional volume. I'll also reiterate what I said earlier, which is that depending on which of those competitors pickup that volume, it appears on our revenue line in different ways and at different rates.

So until we have a better handle on exactly what the likelihood is of particular individual competitors stepping up, it's harder for us to make a prediction, but from a volume perspective, given that we do expect that there will be this reinflow into the purchase, we don't expect that there will be a substantial adverse volume effects.

Brandon Couillard -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Okay, thanks. And one more, just on the OUS HIV business. That business more than doubled through the first three quarters of the year, seemed to slow to like 23% growth in the fourth quarter. Could you just speak to the deceleration there and kind of what your first quarter outlook takes into account for OUS HIV? Thank you.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

So, Brandon, in general terms, I would not read anything into the fourth quarter performance versus the entire year. I think as I alluded too in my remarks, it will be a bit choppy for HIV self-test and that's based on the countries getting traction with their HIV eradication efforts and understanding ordering patterns on their own. So we have to address this on a country-by-country basis and that's why we're not concerned about the unevenness quarter-by-quarter.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And because those orders tend to be smaller numbers of orders in larger volume and order to lagging over from one quarter to another can make a change in cadence that appears to be meaningful but really isn't.

Brandon Couillard -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Super. Thank you.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Brandon.

Operator

Our next question comes from John Hsu with Raymond James. Your line is open.

John Hsu -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe if we could start just -- again, if we go to the 1Q guide, it looks like obviously, around $14 million or so kind of blow what the Street was looking for. And again, I just want to kind of understand that your expectations for genomics is primarily the major delta for maybe what we were expecting for that business. Again, just wanted to try to get a better understanding of what exactly you're seeing as far as the 1Q maybe versus where the Street was sitting?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure, so you're correct the genomics and consumer genomics and in particular that one individual customer of ours is the major driver of that variance between expectations and the guidance that we provided. We believe that the general consumer genomics market is not yet aware of this change and this large participants approached the market. But that as competitors do understand it and understand the opportunity to gain share, they will step up and take that additional share, which is what we mean by the effect of this moderating over the course of the year.

Brandon Couillard -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Okay, great, that's helpful. And then maybe if you could just help us understand that second dynamic as other competitors stepping on the consumer genomics side. Whether it's -- if you could frame maybe the top 10 or top 25 companies, how many of those are your customers currently in one form or fashion?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

So I think the best way to answer that, John, is our track record of customer acquisition. I think we reported that in our molecular -- overall molecular business, we acquired 332 new customers in 2018. So that's almost a customer a day. So the dynamics I think we are seeing in the marketplace is that there continued to be new entrants into the marketplace, and there are, I think fairly low barriers of entry for those entrants. But the more important thing to us is how they grow as customers in our top 20. And so, I reported information that said 18 of our top 20 customers are growing by either double or triple-digit rates. So -- and if you know probably from last quarter, I said 19 out of the 20 and so obviously, one of those fell out and that's the customer that had the unusual ordering patterns that we've been talking about. So there is some concentration of the top of our large customer base, but I think that we have great prospects in diversifying our overall customer base, so that we don't have the exposure we had right now to the actions of one customer.

So if we had seen, let's say, decreases in new customer acquisition or decreases in our top 20 customers' growth rate, we would be concerned. But we don't see that at all. And, in fact, I think we see this market expanding and growing, not only domestically, but as I reported in my remarks, in Asia and Europe as well. So there have been I think other reports have indicated that there is very low penetration, perhaps 1% of all humans have had their genome sequenced. And so the upside is still quite remarkable overall and I think that we, as an industry participants, share those of our peers in the industry in seeing this market sector very optimistically.

John Hsu -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Okay, great. That's very, very helpful, Steven. Last one if I could, just -- it looks like there is -- you made a little bit of change to some of the reporting segments, specifically the one I'm focusing in on, the commercial academic breakdown for genomics. It looks like that is no longer being reported separately. So kind of why make that change now rather than starting clean for fiscal '19?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We just decided to move forward to use that as the base for the full year of 2019 (ph). A decade is a difficult time to make those sort of changes. So we went ahead and made it.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

John, you may have noted in the remarks that the academic sector among molecular was up I think 16% year-on-year. So we are tracking it as one of our growth drivers.

John Hsu -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Okay, great, thanks. That's all from me guys.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, John.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, John.

Operator

Our next question comes from David Westenberg with Guggenheim. Your line is open.

David Westenberg -- Guggenheim -- Analyst

Hi, thanks for taking the question. So I know I'm asking the exact same question as John, and I'm going to do it in a little bit of a more direct way. So you're $14 million, $15 million below guidance for Q1, I know that molecular collections customer is probably not a $15 million order. So somewhere in there, there is a mix relative to expectations even different than say that one molecular customer. So I know you can't predict what kind of what everybody's model is doing on the sell-side. But if there is any other areas to focus on where we might have also been little bit below expectations for you, that would be helpful.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Sure. So that customer -- so if you think back to some of the discussions that we've been having with investors regarding the cadence of quarters in the past call it, year-and-a-half, so we pointed out that the fourth quarter '17 was a very highly unusually high quarter. That -- it certainly drew from the third quarter of '17, and one would typically expect to see more evenness between the third and fourth quarters more similar to what you saw this year. We've also made the point that ending the fourth quarter of 2017, a couple of customers including potentially that large customer may have had larger numbers of units on hand in inventory than they otherwise typically would have, and that would have had the effect of drawing from the first quarter of '18. So if you correct for those and take a look at what the first quarter of '18 could have looked like and what that customer might have represented for that, it really isn't that far off from the $14 million by which our first quarter guidance differed from expectations. There are some other dribs and drabs but they really are the (inaudible) of the difference between what the Street was expecting and what we've guided to.

David Westenberg -- Guggenheim -- Analyst

Okay, thank you and most, my questions have been answered. So I'm just asking one really short one here. Did any of your customers in the molecular collection business mentioned anything about stocking in Q4? Or is this kind of normal ordering patterns in Q4?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We don't have visibility into their stocking, but we do have one off discussions about inventory when we discuss planning for production for their -- to fulfill their orders. But we don't have any widespread visibility into their stocking nor have we heard anything in those more informal discussions that reflects any sort of unusual stocking or destocking patterns.

David Westenberg -- Guggenheim -- Analyst

Thank you very much.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, David.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, David.

Operator

Thank you. And we have a follow-up from Mark Massaro with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is reopened.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Hi guys, thanks. I don't think you mentioned, all of us the US-based POPSEQ initiative. So I attended a conference recently where there was a pretty bullish update about the number of people that have already been enrolled. So can you just talk about all of us being a potential opportunity for you and then maybe any other population sequencing initiatives around the world would be helpful.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. So these fall in the category of large epidemiological studies and many of them are public. We are participating right now in, of the 50 that we're aware of, 10 of them. We've had a small role in all of us I think as we've shared previously. I think what we're seeing here is that many of these studies start with blood collection and then they realize that there are inherent challenges of drawing blood. So that means that enrollment is slower and so -- then they'll take a look at saliva -- self-collective saliva as a non-invasive way to -- people to sample their own DNA. And that gets some of the kind of access that we need. So we are in the hunt in all these studies for that very reason and I think we can point in particular there's coverage of the Million Veterans Program, which is a study that they're considering not only enrolling veterans into the project, but like all of us are also considering giving the participants their data back. Of course, if they are to do that then they would need a Class II cleared FDA device, similar to our Oragene DX or ORAcollect DX products. So that gives us a competitive advantage beyond just the saliva if they're going to provide test results right back to the participants or the patients. So this is a remains -- I think a fruitful area for us and an area that we are very highly focused on, Mark.

David Westenberg -- Guggenheim -- Analyst

Great. And then the acquisitions that you made recently, should we still think of $4 million to $7 million bump to revenues in 2019? And can you talk about your expectations for growth in those segments going forward?

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Sure. So we have not changed our expectations for how those two businesses will contribute to our top line. We haven't said anything specific about the longer-term growth expectations for them, but what we have said is that they are consistent with our overall strategy, which is to be a revenue growth company, i.e, growth in the double digits and those businesses, we do expect to contribute to that strategy.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Excellent. And last one from me. Obviously, it's pretty clear that you're not providing full year guidance, do you think that you may be getting closer to providing full year guidance in aggregate? And then, as a follow-up to that, given the lumpiness going on in molecular collections, should we think of a time in the future where we might be able to get a segment guide in that particular unit when things settle down with the large customer?

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So I think you correctly identified what the sensitivities are to us regarding full-year guidance. We have heard from many of our investors how useful that would be and evaluating that carefully. You can imagine that this disruption that we learned just recently would have made it difficult for us at this point to begin with full-year guidance. But that doesn't mean that we won't at some future point nor does it mean that we will wait for the beginning of the year necessarily to institute full-year guidance.

We also understand that there is significant value to investors to understand how revenues breakdown between the two business units. And so to the extent we can provide useful guidance with respect to that detail, we would certainly consider doing that.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Perfect. And I know this is a difficult question, but do you think your business is set up to achieve double-digit top line growth in the next three years?

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We certainly have characterized ourselves intentionally as an innovation growth company, Mark, and I think that means implicitly that we intend to grow at faster rates than our market segments. And I think as you're well aware, we are in part a diagnostic company and part of life science tool company. And so I think you have to look at the blended rate of those market sectors and then calculate that we intend to grow at or above that rate. So we certainly would love to grow at double-digit rates, but that how it depends on how the sectors are growing as well.

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Great, thanks so much.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Mark.

Operator

Thank you. That brings to an end of the question-and-answer session of today's call. I will now turn the call over to Dr. Tang for closing remarks.

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

We thank you all for participating in today's call and for your continued interest in OraSure. Have a good afternoon and evening.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program. And you may all disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.

Duration: 52 minutes

Call participants:

Stephen S. Tang -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Roberto Cuca -- Senior Advisor and Chief Financial Officer

Mark Massaro -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Brandon Couillard -- Jefferies -- Analyst

John Hsu -- Raymond James -- Analyst

David Westenberg -- Guggenheim -- Analyst

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